Is the telecommunications industry behind the AI curve? The industry says no, of course — but why?
Is the telecommunications industry behind the AI curve? During a session at last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that sought to answer this question, KT’s Chief Responsible AI Officer Soonmin Bae and Rakuten Symphony’s Chief Marketing Officer Geoff Hollingworth both said no, not at all. Of course they did, right? Telcos are not known for being leaders in the adoption of new tech, but the speakers provided the following reasons as to why AI might be different.
Telco has unique data
For starters, stated Bae, telcos have access to “very unique” and “special” data such as user preferences and locations, that is inaccessible outside of the telecommunications industry. This data is typically very personalized and very sensitive.
Further, she continued, the rise of agentic AI means that AI is moving onto devices, and as a result, there will be increasing numbers of transactions of this unique data is increasing. “The rise of agentic AI, it is moving onto on device, embodied AI or physical AI, [and] at the center of this transition, lies actionable AI. The data for digital activity or physical activities should be gathered and transferred, so the transaction[s] [are]… increase[ing].” And, critically, she continued: Telcos, because of their privileged access to the types of data in question, have a “significant impact” on these transactions.
Telco has a lot of data
Hollingworth also began with the data for a simple reason: “If you want to transform the world with AI, you start with data. It is 90 to 95% of what comes out of AI at the end of the day,” he said. “Telecom is actually one of the most data-rich industries… on the planet. We’ve always run on data,” he continued.
He acknowledged, however, that telco data has not previously been industrialized in terms of end-to-end management, governance or simplification. “Because we never had to,” he added.
But telcos have caught onto the fact that now, they do have to industrialize their data in order to benefit from it — and according to Hollingworth, many are finding out that once they do this, the rate in which they can realize the power of AI is significant.
Rakuten, for instance, has hundreds of thousand of cell sites in Japan. “Every day, the antennas on those cells automatically adjust based on the climate, the weather, and they are just by angle, they are just by power, and it transforms the actual service quality of the network. And it acts as one machine, because we’ve been able to center centralize that data,” said Hollingworth. He added that this, combined with the company’s large language model (LLM) — revealed at the end of last year — is enabling it to speak with its customers in a “normal, natural language way,” and ultimately leads to better network and service quality.
AI itself will solve the telco AI talent problem
It’s basically old news at this point that telecom has a skills problem, particularly when it comes to AI specialists and software engineers. Bae confirmed this when she said: “The biggest hurdle telco is facing in the AI era is hiring talent and retaining talent… the future success will lie in this talent.”
For Hollingworth, though, AI itself will solve the AI talent problem for telcos. “Telecom has been a laggard in technology innovation,” he admitted, but added that this has only really been for one reason. “Technology innovation is a software business; it’s a software domain. We have never been able to attract, retain and develop the kind of software engineers that the technology leaders have done outside ourselves.”
He explained that, as a software developer himself, he has first-hand experience with how transformative AI is when it comes to coding. “It is the most transformational experience that I have ever had. The speed in which I can develop software and normalize the creation of what I want is life changing. The first industry that’s going to get disrupted by AI is the software industry, 1000%,” he said. “Our biggest opportunity is to use AI to become a leader in the next software wave, where we are all empowered because of our domain knowledge and we’re not limited now because of our lack with coding skills.”
Telco is comfortable around regulation
Finally, because telcos are accustomed to working within stringent regulatory frameworks, they are in a unique position to address the ongoing challenges around AI governance, responsibility and security, explained Bae.
“The telco should play a[n] important role to maximize the data utilization or make sure that data [is] stored and used in a safe way… Certainly governance is very important in this AI era. AI gets powerful, but people need to feel safe,” she explained. Basically, more people will use AI services if they can trust that their data is protected and only being used in a responsible way. “So, since telcos are the experts in navigating regulatory environments… [they] should play and [lead] in this AI governance… I think the future of AI really depends on the hands of telcos right now.”
